About Us

UK Role Players is an online resource dedicated to role players in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (although visitors from further afield are more than welcome).

What will you find here? Member written articles, monthly columns by published (and unpublished) writers, an indepth listing of clubs and shops across the UK, details on upcoming conventions, member submitted downloads, industry news and releases, reviews, a friendly and active forum, and much more.

Founder/Administrator

Dave McAlister

Dave has been roleplaying for over 30 years, having played and/or run most mainstream systems with the espionage genre being an early favourite. So much so that, in 1999, he started Modus Operandi. That same year he joined the Sarbreenar "Living" campaign team as their plotline controller before moving across to the Living Spycraft campaign team (as UK Regional Branch Director) in 2003. 2003 also saw the birth of UK Role Players as well as Dave's first freelance writing appointment (co-writing World Militaries and consulting on both US Militaries and Battlegrounds, all for Spycraft).
Since then, Dave has concentrated on supporting the UK gaming scene. He has organised and run several small, one-day, events and was the RPG Area Manager for Gen Con UK in 2004. His current favourite systems are Dungeons & Dragons (specifically 5th Edition), Savage Worlds and Cinematic Unisystem. He has a (currently neglected) blog at dave.mcalister.org.uk and runs a D&D 5e SRD website at DnD5e.info.

Contributors

Angus Abranson

Angus has been working in the games industry since the mid-80's when he started working at Leisure Games (a leading hobby store in London). He was part of the team that launched Valkyrie magazine in 1994, founded Cubicle 7 Entertainment and co-founded Dragonmeet. He is currently running Chronicle City, a new games company he started in 2012.

Baz King

Baz was introduced to RPGs in 1979, due to a misunderstanding on his part of what Wargaming actually meant. More than 30 years on, and he's coming round to the idea that he might well have been right first time after all. Baz has been GMing for almost all that time, and has never tired of telling people that they are facing 6 goblins, scattered around a 30' chamber. Not afraid to move with the times, he has been known to not use a screen on occasion. Baz looks forward to levelling up so he can get that next feat and spend it on the rest of his name. Until then, lets face it, it's great being king. Baz lives the high life in darkest Essex, surrounded by things he doesn't really need and couldn't really afford. Still, game on eh? He blogs at rpgtreehouse.wordpress.com.

Creighton Broadhurst

Creighton is a keen gamer who passionately believes in the Open Gaming License and is dedicated to making his games as fun and easy to enjoy as possible for all participants. Reducing or removing entry barriers, simplifying pre-game prep and easing the GM's workload are the key underpinning principles of the products he releases through Raging Swan Press.
Over the last 11 years, Creighton has worked with Expeditious Press, Paizo and Wizards of the Coast. He now releases his own products through Raging Swan Press. You can read his thoughts on game design at www.creightonbroadhurst.com.
Creighton lives in Torquay, England where, apparently, the palm trees are plastic and the weather is warm. He shares a ramshackle old mansion with his two children ("Genghis" and "Khan") and his patient wife. Famed for his unending love affair with booze and pizza he is an enduring GREYHAWK fan.

Gaz Bowerbank

Founder member of The Smart Party, Gaz has been roleplaying for what is rapidly approaching 30 years, which makes him feel old. On the plus side he'd run and or played just about all the games that were out there, until small press publishing got popular, and now there's never enough time. Roleplaying is only one of an eclectic mix of hobbies, but takes up most of his time and Gaz can be seen at many UK conventions and one or two abroad too, his name's in the odd publication and the list of playtest credits is too big to mention. If you want an opinion or advice (on just about anything) ask this man. Bring beer.

Guest Reviewer

Guest isn't a real person, but this review has been written by one (a real person that is). They kindly submitted it for publication here. Their details are contained in the body of the review.

James Grimes

James is writer from Derbyshire and when he's not running games he's writing them. He has spent 3 years running games trying to perfect his craft. Like a reluctant hipster he supports indie games and new systems that people haven't probably heard of but that doesn't jade his opinion of the classics and greats.

Jonathan Hicks

Jonathan Hicks has been gaming for thirty years and has covered almost every type of genre, system and setting. He also runs the RPG website Farsight Blogger and created the SKETCH system for Farsight Games.

Paul Baldowski

Paul has been a tabletop gamer since the early 80s, when he played red boxed Basic Dungeons & Dragons for the first time during lunch break at school. Since then, he has accumulated more games than he's ever likely to read and managed to introduce his own kids into the hobby, through the medium of cardboard crack, Magic: The Gathering. In 2004, he wheedled his way into the rebirth of PARANOIA, writing quite a few pages of the core XP rules, several adventures and the whole of The Underplex. Since then, he has also written for Maelstrom, Outlive Outdead and Night's Black Agents, as well as dabbling in self-publishing. While he spends a fair amount of time blogging on stuff, Dr Who, gaming, and game design, he's also social media and web site lackey for All Rolled Up dice bags, with his wife Fil.

Pete Douglas

Pete Douglas is a colonial with a great line in belted coats. Indie Pete is the name he scribbles on sign-up sheets at UK conventions, where the lad runs RPGs ranging from the hippie and sexy—Love in the Time of Seid—to the homespun and heartwarming—Mouse Guard. Late 30s, 5'10", sober, LF a dish for STR, plate spinning, and mutual basket appreciation.

Rich Stokes

Rich has been gaming for over 25 years and during that time has played or run more-or-less everything. Having spent his early years as a recruitment consultant, web designer and videogames reviewer, Rich eventually settled down and got a proper job in the IT industry. More recently, he's responsible for writing Umläut: Game of Metal and running semi-annual Pubcon events, as well as writing for Cubicle 7's Starblazer Adventures and Legends of Anglerre. He clearly spends too much time thinking about this stuff because he's writing this column. He currently lives in Southampton with his partner, Claire and an elderly cat called Charlie.

Tim Bancroft

Tim's been a roleplayer since the mid 70's and now just enjoys running or playing tabletop RPGs as long as they are not too complicated. He's written for a variety of RPGs over the years and has even helped develop one or two. He occasionally releases products through Sceaptune Games, but is happy to write for anyone providing he doesn't have to do too much production work (not laziness, just physical constraints). He's playtested a variety of RPG and wargame rulesets, though he prefers board games to the latter. In addition to a little knowledge of computers, history and theology, he also studies choral music, voice and spirituality in Winchester. If you want to be nice, buy him a curry, a bottle of good mead or port, or even invite him along to, or offer to come round to his place for, a RPG session.

Support

Support UK Role Players by buying your gaming products through the links to the right and, when the affiliate credit at each individual store reaches a set level a randomly drawn name from the list of active forum users will be invited to pick a product from that store.